Hi

Hi, Pete here. Phil to me he’d put an message on here so I thought I would tell everyone what I’m up to at the moment.

I have a strong background in MS technologies such as AD, Windows security, IIS, Exchange and especially SharePoint. We’re working on a white paper at the moment to highlight methods of group management in MS infrastructures. Phil’s been working on it for a couple of weeks and I’m reviewing the first pass. Hopefully it’ll be out soon.

As well as this I’m looking at the latest GroupID v5 software, especially the Automate and Self Service parts.

Pete

New Staff Member: Pete Owens

Infant Technology is pleased to announce that Pete Owens has joined our staff this week.

We have been working with Pete for quite a while on a number of identity consulting engagements and his knowledge of user and group management in a Microsoft Active Directory/Exchange environment is excellent.

Pete will be a regular contributor to this blog and I just know you’ll all join me in welcoming him on board!

Phil

The Joy of Self Service

One of our first customers in the United Kingdom, way back in 2003, was an NHS organisation thta purchased Imanami's WebDir v2 application solely to provide a directory search tool that they could use in their new intranet.
In the ensuing 6 years since this first installation, which Phil did himself, we've kept a close relationship with this customer and over the years this small installation has changed in so many ways. Now, not only do they use the power of GroupID's search facility but they now have a fully configured portal environment that also:

1. Provides an update 'wizard' that takes a user through the process of updating their own information by following a number of structured steps.
2. Provides self service capabilities to users to update a number of other attributes that the customer did not want to be covered in the update wizard.
3. Incorporates the inbuilt Self Service workflow to notify responsible resources and provide authorization for changes prior to publication to the live directory.
4. Has been fully integrated with the SharePoint intranet so that subject managers can grant group access to users without recourse to the IT helpdesk (resulting in an estimated 10% reduction in user management calls to the helpdesk!) and so that users themselves can request access to information through group membership.

We're hoping to get a case study organised in the very near future.

NS

September 2009 Newsletter

Just released our latest newsletter. If you’re not on our mailing list you can catch it at:

http://www.infatech.com/resources/newsletters/s00909.asp

Phil

Whitepaper: Unleash the Power of Active Directory Groups

With more applications being underpinned by security groups, access to data being driven the same way, and distribution list membership as well, the subject of group management has never been so important.

This newly released Imanami whitepaper on group management in an Active Directory environment discusses the different approaches to group management as well as highlighting the differences between IT- and user-centric approaches.

Download this new whitepaper here – it’s completely free and no registration is required.

SharePoint Group Management

We’ve noticed recently that in may SharePoint projects companies will develop static security solutions that don’t allow the organisation to move with the times.

Typically a company will set up a couple of security groups and will select these in the SharePoint Group Populator, but the membership of these groups remains static and the organization doesn’t benefit from either the SharePoint security model or features such as requesting access to or being granted access to limited site areas such as project or financial data delivered again through group membership.

Using groups to manage SharePoint access is most definitely the correct and best way to deploy SharePoint security but it shouldn’t end there.

Using GroupID 5.0’s Automate module the company can automatically maintain group memberships based on values held within the Active Directory, which means your SharePoint access is always up to date.

Additionally and just as importantly, the Self Service module in GroupID 5.0 allows the company to develop a group membership request and workflow solution as well as devolving areas of group management down to individual group owners (these could be managers responsible for specific SharePoint content access).

We’ll be developing a white paper and perhaps a podcast on this very subject soon, so keep a lookout for these.

InfaTech to Head up Imanami European Sales Network

InfaTech and Imanami are pleased to announce the development of a Europe-wide reseller scheme for the furtherment and sale of Imanami software across the region.

This reseller network will be headed by InfaTech in their position of major European partner, and InfaTech will co-ordinate the engagement with active resellers who will be in a position to sell, deploy, customise and support Imanami’s GroupID 5.0 suite of applications.

Phil Kelly, technical director at InfaTech said “the release of GroupID 5.0 was an exciting event for Infant Technology and Imanami and we have already seen unprecedented interest in the product. More and more customers are looking to GroupID to manage their security groups both manually (via Self Service) or automatically, especially in SharePoint installations. This new European reseller network which we will organize will help to drive home the Imanami group management message in existing territory and to allow us to cultivate new interest in new market areas”.

The European reseller network will build on the successes of Infant Technology (in the UK, Sweden and Ireland) and Cerberis (France), where client installations of Imanami software range from 100 to 250,000-user solutions.

Edward Killeen, VP of Sales and Marketing at Imanami says “this is an exciting time for Imanami and we wanted to include InfaTech in on the latest wave of product development and distribution. InfaTech have been working as our major European partner since 2003 and we wanted them to help us to solidify and underpin our European presence”.

Upgrades to GroupID 5.0 are Here!

We have now received all the upgrade keys to move clients with existing maintenance agreements from previous products to the GroupID modules.

We have already started sending these out electronically and should have everything completed by the end of the week.

If you don’t receive your upgrade email, please contact us via the usual channels.

Phil

New Web Site Almost Ready for Launch

We decided that along with the launch of Imanami’s GroupID 5.0 suite, we should upgrade the infatech.com web site, and this is due for completion this week. This is really exciting because it’s the first proper makeover we’ve given the site in 3/4 years and when it’s complete it should focus visitors quite well on the InfaTech and Imanami messages about the importance of group management.

GroupID 5.0 Self Service – a First Look

WebDir’s got a whole new look!

Now an integral module within GroupID 5.0, it’s now known as the Self Service module and what a makeover it’s been given!

GroupID Self Service has taken all the good features of Imanami’s old flagship product, WebDir and has some other great features added.

‘Self Service’ now supports additional features as:

• Automatic group expiration. This is set according to policy and can be set to never expire groups, expire every 30, 60, 90 or 120 days, 6 or 12 months. This is an excellent feature which will considerably reduce the amount of unused and unwanted groups visible in your address book.
• Automatic expired group deletion. This can be set on or off and if on the period between expiry and deletion is administrator configurable. This will ensure not only that unused groups are hidden from the address book but that they are also deleted from the Active Directory, thus helping administrators maintain a tidier and more importantly a more secure directory.
• Integrated workflow. The Self Service portal now includes its own workflow area where you can not only approve any requests that come in but you can also track your own requests for group memberships etc.

The portal default front screen has also had a good makeover and besides being cleaner and sharper has also been de-cluttered and this makes for a much more readable application:

See how easy it is to create the first self service portal here…

Once you’ve created your first portal, sign in to it and make your own groups, set them the way you want to and have them autoexpire according to policy.

Self Service also includes old favourites like directory search, update, reports, photo support and much much more. More videos to follow; the ones above are only quick previews so we’ll put up a more complete set of Self Service videos when our new web site is launched next week.

Phil